


we've made a graveyard of the bone white afternoon.

by delusionalwithlove



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Blood, Car Accidents, M/M, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 13:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delusionalwithlove/pseuds/delusionalwithlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's on a perfectly normal Friday afternoon on the way home from school, with no supernatural creatures or potential crises in sight, that Scott sinks his teeth into the tender flesh of Stiles's neck and bites, <i>really</i> bites, holding his head still and sinking his fangs in until Stiles is whimpering, until he's echoing the sound because he's on the precipice of rending Stiles's throat in two in his panic, and it's only when Stiles finds the strength to reach up and tug at his hair that he finds the strength to let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we've made a graveyard of the bone white afternoon.

**Author's Note:**

> *Title taken from the poem "Wishbone" by Richard Siken.
> 
> *I listened to "Skin" by Zola Jesus while I wrote this, and it's sort of eerie and perfect, so feel free to listen [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYzCXx7Ndok) while reading if you'd like :)

It's on a perfectly normal Friday afternoon on the way home from school, with no supernatural creatures or potential crises in sight, that Scott sinks his teeth into the tender flesh of Stiles's neck and bites,  _really_  bites, holding his head still and sinking his fangs in until Stiles is whimpering, until he's echoing the sound because he's on the precipice of rending Stiles's throat in two in his panic, and it's only when Stiles finds the strength to reach up and tug at his hair that he finds the strength to let go.  
  
It's on a perfectly normal Friday afternoon on the way home from school, with no supernatural creatures or potential crises in sight, that a massive deer runs out into the road, and a frazzled college student on her way home to visit her family, flushed with Red Bull and adrenaline and the triumph of making it through finals week and coming out on the other side, swerves to avoid it and over-corrects, sees the baby blue jeep in the other lane a half-second too late to avoid a head-on collision.  
  
By the time Scott gets there a few minutes later, bike and backpack and phone discarded somewhere on the road after he'd called the sheriff and then lost his hold on everything in his haste, sprinting down the middle of the road fully wolfed-out (utterly indifferent as to the danger that puts him in if someone sees him, because he runs faster this way and there's no other option but the one that will get him to Stiles the fastest), he can tell from several hundred feet away that the other driver is already dead.   
  
It hits him hard, the smell of it, the stark absence of a heartbeat in the cab of her sedan, as he passes her car first where it spun out onto the road and half into the ditch. He spares a brief second to look at her bloodied face, listen for a pulse in case she can be saved, but there's nothing, and he chokes back bile rising in his throat as he moves on to the crumpled wreckage of the jeep on the other side of the road, tipped over and curled into itself like it's in the fetal position.  
  
The driver's side window is facing the ground, but the way the cab bowed in on itself in the impact left it not flush against the ground but lifted up slightly, leaving about a foot of space underneath it, jutting metal barely holding the weight of it off the ground. He can see a pale arm stretched out over the pavement, over the sparkling glass of the shattered window, and his heart just  _stops_.  
  
Because it's  _Stiles's_  arm, and for some reason he felt as though he had held his breath the whole way there, hoped to find someone else's jeep, someone else's arm stretched out in the mess of glass and water leaking out from some punctured tank in the carcass of the jeep, but he had just  _known_  the second that it happened, frozen on his bike at an intersection waiting for the light to change so he could cross, not close enough to hear the impact but feeling it ripple out over him, and through him, like a fault line opening up in his chest.  
  
Scott feels balanced on the edge of that precipice inside himself as he bends down and feathers his fingertips over the skin of Stiles's arm, like this moment is hinged on his survival, too, that if Stiles is-- is-- if he's not breathing, then there won't be anything to keep Scott from tumbling down into the darkness quickly opening up inside himself and letting it swallow him whole.  
  
Then, improbably, he feels the flutter of a pulse through the thin skin of Stiles's wrist, and before he knows what he's doing he's pushing the jeep up with one hand, adrenaline and strength and pure, undiluted panic singing in his veins, and he lifts so hard that he almost tips it over onto its other side. It's in no condition to sit upright on its wheels, so he lifts it enough to wrench the door open with his other hand and drag Stiles out, one arm firmly around his middle, before pushing it over onto the opposite side and barely hearing the sickening crunch of metal as he lays Stiles out on a swath of grass just off the side of the road, gingerly, like he's made of glass.  
  
He knows he shouldn't have moved him, but logic really isn't in the forefront of his mind right now, not when Stiles is opening his eyes against the blood streaming from a thick gash stretching across his scalp, looking up at Scott with glassy eyes and smiling around a mouthful of his own blood and gritting out, "Hey, buddy," like Scott can't hear his broken ribs catching on his lungs with the effort-- like this isn't happening. This can't be happening.  
  
"Stiles--" His voice breaks and he doesn't know when he started crying, but he's suddenly aware that there are tears dripping down over his lips, and snot, and sweat, and when he reaches up to swipe at the mess on his face he feels dirt and something that smells faintly like gasoline and Stiles's blood joining it. He doesn't remember when Stiles's blood got on his hands, or where it came from; maybe from the mess of his left leg where it was crushed between the seat and the dashboard, or maybe from his scalp, but there's too much blood and it doesn't matter where it came from because it's  _there_ , soaking through his Captain America t-shirt and dripping in his eyes and smeared across Scott's cheek. There's so much, and Scott's senses are gutted with it.  
  
"They're coming, your dad, the ambulance, I called-- didn't figure out which road it was on until I was already on my way, but they're coming, it's going to be--" He doesn't know how it's going to be, can't bring himself to choke out 'okay,' and settles for wiping at Stiles's forehead with the sleeve of his jacket even though it's futile, more blood slipping down already to replace it, chasing the path of his fingertips and pooling in the creases of eyelids and knuckles and everywhere in-between. It's everywhere. He consoles himself with the fact that it's bleeding like that because thin skin and vessels and arteries and shit, and really, head wounds are just far too dramatic for their own good, and he doesn't know when he started keening but he doesn't notice until Stiles lifts an arm weakly to palm at his face.  
  
"Scott, calm down. It's okay. I'm going to be fine." It doesn't sound like he even believes himself, but he's smiling around the blood and it's congealing in his eyelashes and he's trying to make  _Scott_  feel better even when his pulse is starting to fade and he can't hold his arm up anymore so it falls limply back against the grass, and Scott can't fucking take it. He can't take Stiles giving him the 'it looks bad but we'll figure this out, I know we will, just trust me' smile like  _Scott_  is the one who needs it when Stiles is the one bleeding out on the side of the road.  
  
" _Stiles_ \--" is all he can choke out, because he can feel his best friend's heart slowing under his palm, and there's so much blood, and there are sirens in the distance but it's not enough. They're not coming fast enough, and Stiles is dying, and he's not smiling anymore but his mouth is still full of blood when Scott leans down and kisses him, hard and messy and desperate, and their teeth knock together but it doesn't matter because this is not a goodbye kiss and it doesn't count if he doesn't let it.  
  
When he pulls back he can't get the words out around Stiles's blood in his mouth, so he lets his eyes shift to gold and his teeth crowd together around fangs, and he doesn't wait to see the imperceptible nod that Stiles gives him because he's already tipping his head to the side and sinking his teeth into the soft flesh of his neck.   
  
It gives, horribly, and he stays there longer than he needs to, longer than Peter ever did because this is  _Stiles_ , and this has to work. There is no other option. He sinks his fangs in until Stiles is whimpering, until he's echoing the sound because he's on the precipice of rending Stiles's throat in two in his panic, and it's only when Stiles finds the strength to reach up and tug at his hair that he finds the strength to let go.  
  
There's a heady silence when he pulls back, stares at Stiles staring at him, and then at the gaping wound he left on his neck, raw and feebly welling with whatever blood is left to rise to the surface there. When he can't look anymore he tips forward and puts his ear to Stiles's heart, pressing the side of his face into the mess of his t-shirt and closing his eyes to listen, like it might be the last time he hears this sound. It might be.  
  
"Scott, I think--" Stiles's heart rate picks up under his ear, an almost imperceptible shift inside of him that Scott can  _feel_ , and it worked, it has to be working, and Scott pulls back, smiling around eyes full of tears and a mouth full of blood until he sees Stiles's face. Scott improbably hears the heart-wrenching scream before it even makes it out of Stiles's throat, and it feels like he's the one dying as he watches his best friend contort horribly on the ground despite his injuries and  _scream_.  
  
There's a long moment when Scott can do nothing but watch, catch his hands in the air and hold them to his chest to steady them both, and the sirens are close but Stiles is still screaming-- until he isn't.  
  
Until he's looking incredulously up at Scott, panting with his mouth open and his lips flecked red, watching Scott watch the gash in his scalp slowly knit itself back together, watching Scott watch him as they both listen to the awful shifting in his body as things start to right themselves. Stiles whimpers against Scott's mouth as his ribs catch on his lungs on the way out, and Scott doesn't know when he started kissing him again but their lips are sliding together through the mess of blood and it's slick and greedy and terrible but it's good, it's so good, because this is not a goodbye kiss.  
  
The sirens finally arrive, and there's still so much blood, and his leg is still badly crushed and will have to be splinted and put in a cast, and there are still bruised organs and torn muscles and a lot of things that mean he's going to be in a hospital bed for a couple of days, but he's alive, against all the odds, his heartbeat ringing out to Scott over the sirens and the rapid-fire chatter of paramedics and police as they block off the road.   
  
They're lifting him into the ambulance and he's still smiling his bloody smile, more teeth than anything, as if he could really fool anyone at this point, and they're saying things like  _impossible_  and  _miracle_  and  _at least six pints of blood_ , but he's alive. The sheriff appears to sling an orange shock blanket around Scott's shoulders, urging him into the squad car so they can follow the ambulance to the hospital, saying something in a tear-choked voice that Scott barely hears, because Stiles is looking at him from the ambulance, and he's  _alive_.   
  
They lock eyes over the shoulder of the paramedic strapping Stiles in, and just before the ambulance doors slam shut he catches the brief flash of golden brown shifting into an endless blue, bright enough to burn straight through him, leave him breathless and gasping around the blood in his mouth, and it feels like a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> *In my rush to get this all out and written as soon as the idea occurred to me, I sort of threw the canon werewolf lore out the window and forgot that only alphas can turn people, so feel free to either stay in this weird suspended universe where betas can turn people too, or pretend for the sake of logic that Scott is an alpha in this universe, real or in his own right, that he becomes one through the act of saving Stiles, whatever you prefer. 
> 
> *I don't know why Stiles's eyes ended up being blue, it just came out as I was writing it, and I liked the image so much that I didn't change it to gold when I went back through to edit it. Since we don't yet know what blue eyes mean in canon, except that it's been confirmed that it has nothing to do with genetics or being a born werewolf, I don't feel weird yet about making them blue, although I'm sure as soon as we know what the deal is in season 3, it won't fit anymore. So it goes.


End file.
